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Rankin Touches Down at NFL
America's National Football League (NFL) has underlined its commitment to understanding consumers, hiring former ESPN insight leader Alicia Rankin to head up its Research Department and help grow its 170 million-strong fan base.
As Director of Research heading up the League's Consumer and Market Insights department, Rankin will also strengthen the NFL brand and play a business development role. She told DRNO: 'My team will look to deepen fan insight from all angles - TV viewing, online consumption, game attendance, buying NFL merchandise, etc. - to really uncover those hooks that gets someone interested in the NFL and keeps them engaged for life. The challenge for the overall League is to make sure we continue to innovate the game/sport and think many years ahead. Research will be leaned on heavily to provide strategic direction and advice as we move forward with these different initiatives.'
Rankin spent more than seven years at sports entertainment company ESPN, creating and growing the Consumer Insights group and working on brands including ESPN.com, ESPN The Magazine, and ESPN Radio. She worked previously on the supply side, specializing in managing projects across a number of industries including sports sponsorship and telecom - and visited the office where she will now be working to present quarterly updates on fan base trends and sponsorship effectiveness.
The announcement comes as two NFL teams prepare for the first regular-season game ever to be played outside North America: on Sunday, the Miami Dolphins and New York Giants will meet at London's Wembley Stadium, in the first of a series of games to be played in other countries over the next five years.
Web site: www.nfl.com.
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